Hans Madueme, “‘The Most Vulnerable Part of the Whole Christian Account’: Original Sin and Modern Science” (Chapter 11 of Madueme & Reeves, eds., Adam, the Fall and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspectives). This book is not on Google Books or any other online form that I can easily find, so I had to manually type in all the following quotes. That’s why I can’t quote at length, but if you want more quotes from a specific section, I can look at it.
Interestingly, Madueme is a YEC. But he sounds more diplomatic and more respecting of mainstream science than many others. While this chapter mainly discusses the doctrine of original sin (OS) in relation to science, it also details Madueme’s general attitude towards reconciling science and theology.
Madueme on Scriptural Realism
Background
The proposal I want to unpack briefly is scriptural realism and it draws on classical themes within the Reformational traditions. It is designed to answer our key question - on what grounds can extrabiblical, natural science change or even overturn, a doctrine that is authorized by God’s Word in Scripture? I will sketch out my proposal in three moves. (241)
First move: inerrancy
The first move - or rather, commitment - is to affirm biblical inerrancy. Since God cannot err or deceive, Scripture as his self-expression cannot err or deceive (e.g., 1 John 3:20; Titus 1:2, Heb. 6:18). God is holy and faithful. Scripture is truthful in all that it affirms, so that “when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences”.
The quoted definition of inerrancy is from Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy” in Inerrancy, ed. Geisler (Zondervan, 1980)
…This conviction functions inescapably as a premise shaping our understanding of the relationship between science and theology…there are indeed other legitimate windows into reality (e.g., history, science, archaeology, etc.), but Scripture stands on an entirely different plane as the Word of God.
The Second Move
The second move invokes a pneumatic certainty. John Calvin acknowledges the objective dimension of Scripture’s authority, what he calls the “firm proofs” that help establish the credibility of Scripture. But Calvin goes on to argue that far greater than any such external proof is the internal proof that God himself speaks in the Scriptures…
This internal testimony of the Holy Spirit induces in believers a theological certainty of the divinity of Scripture. In the seventeenth century, Francis Turretin classified three kinds of certainty: mathematical, moral, and theological. Appropriating the latter, we can call this a pneumatic certainty, by which we mean that autonomous human reason does not have final authority over faith. Our sinfulness ensures that reason must sometimes be instructed by faith as it is supernaturally mediated by the Spirit through the Word of God… (242)
The concept of dogmatic rank can help at just this point. Some doctrines are more central to the biblical witness and others more peripheral, less certain. Central doctrines are more clearly attested and more vital to the very structure of faith, so that they shape the lives of believers at much deeper levels. These beliefs have a high depth of ingression (perhaps even a maximal depth of ingression). They are not on the periphery but at the very center of my noetic (intellectual) structure. (243)
…In truth, even our central theological convictions are equally central to the Bible or equally honed intellectually. Some are more flexible and less certain. In truth, even our central theological convictions must be put to the test of Scripture. So the pneumatic certainty must be a qualified pneumatic certainty.
The Third Move
(emphases all mine)
The third move is to adopt an eclectic approach to scientific theories…This kind of eclecticism is committed to a “soft” rather than “hard” concordism. Science and theology will ultimately harmonize - when Christ comes back - but in the meantime attempts to harmonize them are often premature. This is partly because Scripture does not usually answer our scientific questions and partly because scientific claims are by nature revisable…That said, the Bible does address material issues that bear directly on the claims of science.
The upshot of all this is that there will at times be real conflict between science and theology (or better, between widely accepted scientific theories and Christian doctrine). Sometimes a major doctrine will thus be in tension with the scientific consensus. How should one proceed in such a situation? Recall that the ultimate harmonization of scientific theorizing with our doctrinal conceptions is an eschatological claim. The reality explored by science is most truly, though not exhaustively, disclosed to us in Scripture; since our world is fallen, scientific theory and practice are fully enmeshed in the noetic effects of sin. In this life east of Eden we will therefore not always be able to reconcile science and theology - to think that we will, or to assume too quickly that we have successfully done so, will tend to betray an over realized eschatology. During those episodes of of genuine conflict between science and theology there will be times that scientific consensus will simply need to be rejected by Christians. (244)
…Let us say that when our doctrinal convictions are clearly attested to in Holy Scripture, when they are central - not peripheral - to the redemptive-historical narrative, and when they are taught universally in the catholic church, then those convictions are deeply, even maximally, ingressed in our noetic structure. They are confirmed supernaturally by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit and we are thus convinced of their divinity. They are theologically certain. They are warranted on the sole authority of God and his word in Scripture and they need no warrant or evidential support from modern science or any other area of human learning. They effectively serve as theological lenses with which we then apprehend the rest of reality.
…It is also possible that these central doctrinal beliefs may be overturned by a future scientific finding, but, practically speaking, the threshold for such defeasibility is very high. (245)
Madueme’s Scriptural Realism applied to Original Sin
The doctrine of Adam’s fall is a central, not peripheral. It is warranted by Holy Scripture (norma normans) and the catholic tradition (norma normata). Adam and Eve were historical people. They were the head of the human race, and they fell from God’s goodness and grace. This doctrine is essential for our knowledge of sin and our experience of redemption. It is warranted by God’s Word in Scripture and therefore theologically certain.
…
Scientific evidence that is overwhelmingly persuasive can therefore overturn a central doctrine like the fall. We would then have to revise our understanding of Scripture without a historical Adam or fall. But such a decisive judgment should never be made by one or even many individuals; like the earlier conciliar or creedal decrees, it would be an ecclesial decision superintended by God’s Spirit and involving church leaders from across the globe. Such a scenario is logically possible yet extremely unlikely. The biblical evidence for the fall has an intrinsic warrant that is far greater than any current evidence for paleoanthropology and evolutionary biology. Moreover, the fall is an essential thread tying together key doctrines in the seamless garment of systematic theology; pull it loose and the whole thing unravels. Some of the pre-Adamite proposals are, on this point, more plausible than others - different church traditions will assess them using their own internal theological standards - but none fully persuade (they leave too many questions unanswered). Individuals may hold these proposals as nondogmatic, tentative hypotheses that are not binding on the church.
Given the extremely fragmented nature of modern Protestant Christianity, I doubt that Madueme’s suggestion of a worldwide church council agreeing to reinterpret certain doctrines is a realistic proposal.
Madueme on some proposals to reconcile the Fall with modern science
Evolutionary pre-Adamism goes one step further by including humans within the evolutionary process. Proponents of this view say that Adam evolved from an earlier hominim and then became, with Eve, the father of all his descendants (i.e., true humanity) - notable exponents are John Jefferson Davis and Henri Blocher. Federal headship pre-Adamism is the idea that Adam evolved from a hominin and had many hominin neighbors - when Adam fell, he acted as the federal head of both his descendants and his contemporaries. Derek Kidner suggested this picture over forty years ago, and it has been picked up by the likes of John Stott, R. J. Berry, Denis Alexander, and Tim Keller.
These pre-Adamite proposals embrace a more or less realist understanding of the fall - Adam’s fall happened in our space-time history. One weakness, however, is the potential of an Adam-of-the-gaps fallacy…Thus Adam and the fall are held hostage to the fortunes of science. (237)
Madueme then goes on to critique Blocher for changing his dating of Adam from 40k BC to 100k BC, and Karl Rahner for changing his views from requiring monogenism to allowing polygenism to be consistent with original sin. I’m not sure whether you’ve engaged with these cases before in the book.